Last Chances
by KatandAlfieFan
Summary: Set in 2013 after the episode where Kat and Whitney talked in the toilets. Everything is as it was in the show up until this point, except that Kat has been living with Bianca since Alfie threw her out. Contains some bad language, but this has been starred out.
1. Chapter 1

Alfie stood behind the bar of The Queen Victoria, devoid of the features which had led to his being perceived as something of a cheeky chappie. He was for the moment running the bar alone, although this would not pose a challenge even for Roxy with the current state of affairs; the seating areas were sparsely populated with a number of ageing men leaning over what looked to be copies of the day's Walford Gazette, and who had been nursing the same half-pints for almost as long as Alfie could remember. It was as if the establishment had converted overnight; to a library. Rather more accurately, Alfie was slouching against the said bar, his eyes searching the room aimlessly. What could he possibly be looking for? A particle of dust perhaps, given that Roxy had had him down in the bar at what he could only describe as an ungodly hour, armed with the vaccum, a duster and a brand new tin of polish; shortly before her announcement that she would be heading into town that morning to have coffee with an old friend. The turn of events had left Alfie with nothing to do other than to ponder his thoughts, one of which was that this wasn't the fun-loving individual that he had become acquainted with upon his return three long years ago. Alfie's boredom had been exacerbated by the fact that the bottling up had been completed, and that they would not be expecting a delivery for the foreseeable future, having taken receipt of one the previous day. For one such as Alfie whom had been in the pub game for some years now, this of course was something that should be foreseeable, and which they ought to be able to predict with some degree of accuracy. When he had been running the pub with Kat, they could take delivery of a given quantity of lager or another commodity, and be fairly sure as to when they would require a subsequent delivery. The reality of late was some way from this; one week they would be on par with the pace of business that he and Kat had seen, while the next it was as if they'd imposed an entry fee; the entry fee being mandatory attendance of bible classes alongside Dot Branning. Was Roxy the cause of the fluctuations in the Vic's business? Alfie was unable to comprehend an alternative potential cause.

The large double doors of the pub suddenly opened, and Alfie's eyes darted across with the aim of discerning the identity of the most recent entrant to the bar. It transpired that Alfie need not have been poised to scan the recesses of his mind for the identities of their more occasional customers.

"Tyler!" Alfie called enthusiastically, as his cousin near glided toward the bar. "You're looking much more chipper today," he remarked, pulling out a pint glass from below the bar and holding it in Tyler's line of vision.

Tyler was unable to suppress a grin as he propped himself up against the familiar entity, nodding. "I am mate. Me and Whit… we're sorted."

An expression of surprise crossed Alfie's features for a brief time, as the memory of recent events washed over him. "Yeah?" Alfie said, almost questioning whether or not he had heard correctly.

"Yeah. Aren't you happy for us?"

"Course I am … just… well a bit surprised I guess. I thought she was on self-destruct?" Alfie recalled, an element of sadness within his tone. He was quietly pleased with his efforts, having succeeded in avoiding repeating Joey's name. There had been three people in his marriage upon more occasions than he cared to recall, and it wasn't the first time that a Branning had got in the way of a beautiful relationship. The murky coloured liquid almost spilled over the rim of the glass as Alfie momentarily became lost in his thoughts. He swiftly pushed the pump to its usual vertical position and placed the glass on the shiny surface for his cousin to take. It was almost as if the bar were a mirror, Alfie realised, given the ridiculous standard of cleanliness that he'd been forced to scrub it to that morning. He smiled slightly as he remembered the times that Kat had drawn her trademark picture in it; no chance. It seemed like a million years ago.

"She's over it," Tyler stated confidently. "I had a think and I've been an idiot. She made a mistake and I'm not going to throw what we've got away. God knows I've made the same mistake enough times, so who am I to talk?" he questioned rhetorically.

"I'm happy for you cous," managed Alfie, noting that Tyler seemed much happier irrespective of Whitney's indiscretion than he was in his respective relationship. 'Marriage doesn't solve everything' seemed to be another one of those sayings which had become ingrained within many people's minds, and Alfie was slowly but surely beginning to realise that this was extremely true. "What happened?" he enquired, but notably without his usual sense of confidence.

"Oh… something Kat said."

The level of attention that Alfie was devoting to the exchange heightened as he heard his wife's name. "Oh yeah? What did she say?" he asked, hopefully.

Tyler took a sip of his pint. "No idea Alf. Must have been something quite big though, to make Whit stop letting Tony and that Rob bloke win. They were all I'd heard about for the last week, until today."

Nodding, Alfie made a mental note that he'd have to check on her later. He knew instantly what she'd had to revisit to produce such a change in Whitney. Not that he really needed a note to remember anything about his wife.

* * *

Tyler had taken his leave after an hour or so, leaving Alfie to endure his daily dose of bullsh*t. It seemed inevitable, as none other than Michael Moon had just sauntered in. Alfie concluded the tale of Roxy's earlier cleaning demands as Michael downed his second whisky and slammed the tumbler down onto the bar, causing an ice cube to come flying out and to land on the bar in front of him. "What would blondie say?!" he quipped in a false, dramatic tone.

Alfie made no comment, turning around to refill the glass.

"She ain't the right one for you, Alf," Michael remarked as the third whisky was deposited within his reach.

"Who is then? Kat?"

"Well, yeah.."

"So right for me that you were one of the people trying to f*ck up everything that we had."

"I weren't trying to f*ck up nothing," insisted Michael, suddenly finding the still deserted bar interesting to look around.

"What did you expect to happen when you slept with her then?!" barked Alfie, suddenly becoming more angry than he'd been in a long while. One or two of the customers looked up from their literature at the commotion, but didn't seem to be able to ascertain its cause. The movement reassured Alfie a little; with the current clientele, it was almost as if they'd opened an old people's home, and Alfie had been beginning to wonder whether one or more of them had shuffled off of their mortal coils. "Can't even look me in the eye, can ya?"

Michael turned back to Alfie, not looking quite as smug as he normally did, but he still seemed too pleased with himself for his cousin's liking. "Not this again; we were drunk, it was a mistake, it meant nothing." "Nothing," he repeated.

Shaking his head repeatedly in Michael's direction, Alfie spoke up. "It meant something alright. She was just a trophy to you, weren't she? You make me sick!" Having concluded his outburst, Alfie then retired to the hallway, busying himself with opening the new boxes of crisps, retrieving any remaining packs from the old boxes; before breaking down the old boxes for recycling.

Once this was done, Alfie made his way back out into the bar. He was disgruntled to see Michael still standing there, bold as brass. "What are you still doing here?!" he demanded grumpily.

"Hang on a minute Alf; I didn't make Kat go with Derek and I didn't get you into this farce of a relationship with blondie."

Alfie had more than had enough by this point. Maybe Michael had been talking sense at a point today; Kat being right for him, he and Roxy being a farce; but there were always limits with Michael. "Derek might have finished us off but you bl**dy started it!" he snarled.

It was a rare event, once in a lifetime even; Michael had nothing with which to answer back, and left.

* * *

Six hours later, Alfie had just returned to the hallway having changed a barrel when he heard the turning of a key in the lock of the back door. He poked his head into the bar and called, "Keep an eye on the bar for us for a minute, would you Trace?" knowing that he needed to have more than a few words with his fiancé.

"Hey Grandad," Roxy called, catching sight of Alfie as she attempted to stuff her keys back into her handbag without looking at what she was doing.

Still agitated from his earlier words with Michael, Alfie was shorter with Roxy than he would have intended. "What were you doing, growing the coffee beans yourself! You've been gone for over eight hours!"

Roxy rolled her eyes at the greeting that she had received. "Now you sound like Kat," she said simply.

"What do you expect?! I was married to her for ten years!"

Her expression fell upon hearing this response, and was in danger of turning into a dustpan as Alfie announced, "I need to go out."

* * *

Outside, Alfie looked across to the familiar gardens as he heard the beeping of his phone. Predictable, he thought, Roxy's apology. Surely it had to take longer than that if it was sincere? Pulling the handset from his pocket, Alfie was surprised to learn that the message was actually from Michael. Yet another person that he had no desire to speak to at the present moment. He figured that as he was holding the phone in his hand, he may as well read the message. That wasn't to say that he had any intention of responding to it, because it was the last thing on his list of priorities. In fact, achieving world peace ranked more highly. With this, he robotically clicked the 'read' button.

 _I'm sorry. She'd have you back in a heartbeat._


	2. Chapter 2

Allowing the words upon the small screen to sink in, Alfie froze. Following the briefest of intervals, he snapped out of his trance having arrived at the realisation that Roxy would soon be skulking outside dejectedly. Were she to succeed in finding him, she would waste no time in degrading herself, pathetically begging him for their relationship to go back to normal. He used the term normal particularly loosely; what had their relationship been anyway? What was going on lately? Alfie knew precisely what had been occurring of late; a gradual acceptance on his part of the fact that Michael had been accurate in his damning assessments of the relationship. He termed it a relationship only for it involving two people, who were in some capacity now associated with the other. Alfie had regarded his relationship with Kat in their early days as being nothing short of perfect, and there were no elements of his present relationship which seemed to correlate with any part of it. Michael, the man with no relationship successes to speak of. He supposed he could say the same for Kat, Alfie thought sadly. No. He couldn't allow himself to entertain that notion any further. That was merely the interest that others seemed to vest, naming no names but knowing exactly who came top of the list. He shoved the phone back into his pocket roughly, before starting toward his destination at pace.

Glancing back toward the Vic on his way, Alfie cursed himself for bothering to look for any signs of curtain twitching. So what if she saw him? He would have a perfectly legitimate excuse for his visit, and she would swallow it in a second, before embarking on her childlike pleas. They would be not dissimilar to those of a child who had been denied of access to their Play Station, and would go right through him. He would accept them without hesitation, if nothing else to spare himself from any further ordeal.

..

Alfie tapped lightly on the dark green door. He knew that Bianca would delight in devising all kinds of stories for Roxy's benefit were she to become aware of his being there. As he awaited its opening, his mind drifted back to the countless times that he had visited the same person at Number 23, merely doors away from where he now stood. And yet the respective situations seemed miles adrift.

Eventually, the door swung open and Alfie came face to face with his wife. She remained silent as he stared at her for perhaps a little too long, taking in her features once again. No words were necessary; she was elated to see him once more, never before having appreciated his presence so much as she had following her stupid mistake and their consequential break up. The term stupid mistake was something of an understatement, but what more could she do?

"Is Bianca in?" asked Alfie simply. To a bystander, it might have looked as if he and Bianca had some business which they needed to attend to, but the two knew exactly what had been meant by this question. They were the only two people who mattered.

"She got called in for an appointment at the school. Tiff put drawing pins on her teacher's chair," Kat informed her husband. "You can guess what happened next," she grinned, still amused by the tale. A hint of sadness crept in as she recalled the time that Shenice had spent with Alfie and herself; the schemes that she and Tiffany had played.

The story caused Alfie to chuckle; it seemed like something his wife would do, and he smiled as he was once again reminded of this side of her. Fellow residents of Albert Square had informed Alfie that Roxy had once been much the same in this respect, but Alfie struggled to recall the last occasion upon which he had observed any first hand evidence of this. He could only presume the assertion had been a comparison relative to… her… that woman.

Kat brought the two sides of her cardigan together, wrapping it around herself delicately and folding her arms across her chest; almost cuddling herself as she had done many a time in the months since their break up. She left Alfie to his thoughts for a moment, still standing on the edge of the doorstep with Alfie outside of the house.

"Wonder how long it is before we start getting calls like that about our Tommy, ey?" Alfie quipped, now having snapped out of his previous thoughts, not all of which had consisted of happy memories.

Kat giggled at this; there it was, that dirty laugh of hers that Alfie had missed so much. "I know," she muttered, having been thinking the same herself, but not wanting to scare Alfie away through voicing it herself. "You wanna come in?" she asked him. "Whitney's out with Tyler, Liam's gone to stay with Ricky for a few days and the rest are in bed."

With this, Alfie nodded and stepped inside once Kat had cleared the way. He was soon taking a seat on the beige couch, Kat making her way to the kitchen to prepare two coffees.

Returning a short time later, Kat passed a steaming hot mug to her husband. The two then sat in a tense silence until Alfie took a sip of his coffee and remarked, "You remembered."

Nervously, Kat replied with, "Of course I did." While not wanting to cause the atmosphere between them to become tenser still, she was mindful also of the possibility that she might agitate Alfie with her words. The last thing she wanted was to eradicate what small possibility she believed they had of ever making it up again. Properly.

Alfie gave another small smile at her words, while placing his mug down onto the coffee table which stood before them.

"Nothing wrong with Tommy is there?" asked Kat, the curiosity surrounding Alfie's appearance now becoming too much for her to take. As the words left her lips, Kat wasn't sure what worried her the most; the atmosphere between them or the mere thought that something could be wrong with her son. Half a year ago, less, it would have been the latter without a shadow of a doubt, but now the thought of reuniting with her husband increasingly dominated her thoughts. She'd wanted him back from the very second they'd broken up, of course she had, but having set out upon the long road to sorting her life out in recent months, she was now more determined than she ever had been to make this a reality.

Hearing this, Alfie quickly looked Kat in the eyes and assured her, "Of course not, he's great. Jean's with him." He hated the fact that his unannounced appearance had put such a thought in Kat's mind.

"I just wanted to see you. Check you were ok an' that. I heard that you and Whitney had quite a night last night."

"It was nothing," Kat insisted. When she thought about it, she wasn't sure why she had said that. One of her trademark mannerisms, she supposed. Bottle everything up, pretend everything is fine and deny that anything is happening. That was her.

"Come on, Kat," Alfie started gently. "I know you."

That was true. He was the only one who ever had. Most things, anyway. To this day, Kat still couldn't explain some of her actions, and there were no prizes for guessing which ones Kat had been referring to when this thought crossed her mind. She must have been on another planet, because she was even unable to recall the rationale that she had been deluding herself with at the time.

"I know what you've had to relive just to help her. Harry. Andy," he muttered sadly.

"It's fine. Yeah they hurt me but I've brought a lot more on myself."

Alfie knew immediately that Kat was referring to Derek when she said this. His heart went out to her as she said, "I just couldn't stand to watch her mess everything up like I did."

"I just wanted you to know that I'm proud of you, for doing that for Whitney."

"Won't your fiancée be wondering where you are?" Kat asked, regretting her words the very second that they left her mouth. Why had she said that? Did she want him to leave? She knew that the answer was a resounding no. She guessed that subconsciously, she hadn't wanted to discuss her past any further at the present moment. Despite this, Kat was unable to explain why she had no desire for such a discussion. Alfie helping her to fight her demons; it was one of the things that she had missed the most.

Alfie shook his head vigorously. "Nah," he said with little or no enthusiasm. "We're far from inseparable."

After an intermission, Kat could only manage, "Right," not knowing what to say, but feeling the need to punctuate the silence with something.

"It's nothing like us; we were pretty much joined at the hip, weren't we?" Alfie recalled, thinking back to their brief engagement.

"We were," Kat nodded as she remembered the time fondly. "I was gonna say that myself, but I didn't want you to think that…" she told him, before pausing, suddenly nervous once again. She couldn't exactly stop what she had been saying now. "… that I was playing games… you know… to try to get you back."

Kat had been expecting a quick come back to this, reiterating that it couldn't happen and that there was far too much water under the bridge for them now. It was almost as if that were a reflex for Alfie now. To Kat's surprise, Alfie did not do as predicted and instead launched into a tirade on the subject of his present relationship.

"Clean the bar Alfie. Hoover the lounge Alfie. Do the washing up Alfie."

Kat nodded, the miniature part of her she had allowed to remain optimistic throughout hoping that if she allowed him to continue uninterrupted, he would suddenly realise that he didn't want to be with Roxy at all.

"Go get the mixers Alfie. Call the brewery Alfie. Do the books Alfie."

She couldn't help but let a short laugh escape her at her husband's concluding remark. Well of course she wanted Alfie to do the books. It wasn't like Roxy was capable of doing them herself, was it? It wasn't her strong point by any stretch of the imagination, but even she would have realised that Michael had been conning Jean out of all their money.

Alfie didn't seem to have noticed Kat's minor indiscretion, for he continued on his escapade. "This morning she said she was going out for coffee, and she was gone for eight hours or more! That's not to say she didn't leave me with a list of orders, 'cause she did. 'Make the bed Alfie.'"

That final point proved too much for Kat, who suddenly exploded. She couldn't do it. She couldn't sit back and listen to the only man she'd ever loved talking about another woman, and about the bed that had been theirs; in the same sentence. Her sudden flare up knocked Alfie for six, even though he was more than aware of how feisty she could be. Alfie perceived it to be sudden, but how sudden could it truly be when he was talking to his wife about his new fiancée?

"If you want me back, I'll be there like a shot, but I can't be your flaming relationship councillor!" Kat screamed with all her might, pouring all of her pent up emotions into it.

Once the reality of what Kat had said, or rather screeched; hit him, Alfie's expression could only have been described as that of a rabbit caught in headlights. Why did he do this? Why was it time and time again a huge surprise for Alfie that Kat loved and wanted him? She understood that in taking the path that she had last year, she'd made him feel rejected, unwanted and without worth. But she'd made no secret of the fact that she deeply regretted her actions and longed to have him back.

"I can't Kat," he managed weakly, after what seemed like an eternity. There were scarcely two seconds between this and his making for the door.

"Alfie I know I broke your trust, badly. But if there's anything I can do to earn it back, please let me know," Kat called desperately after her departing husband. She could only hope that he had heard her pleas, because she wasn't sure when she would have enough courage to repeat them. As the front door slammed to a close, she fell to the floor and sobbed.


	3. Chapter 3

Alfie trudged along the path on his way back to the Vic, his wife's words ringing in his ears. She was more vulnerable now than he had seen her in a long while, probably since he'd asked her for the divorce and she'd told him that she'd slept with Michael for the second time. He could see then that it wasn't what she wanted, that she didn't want anyone else. Technically, the two were separate events, but Alfie couldn't help but feel responsible, feel that he'd driven her to it. She didn't take rejection well at all, he knew that. One had led to the other, like a line of dominoes. One small push and everything comes tumbling down. It saddened Alfie to realise how appropriate a comparison that was; it was a piece of paper, just like that he'd obtained almost immediately prior to their wedding ten years previously. Except there was one difference this time, and a big difference at that. Last time, it had been so easy to get the divorce; easy in the sense that the other name emblazoned upon the paper was that of someone he'd never truly cared about at all. Of course it was far from easy at the time as everyone remembered it, when you considered all the running around and chasing that Alfie had had to undertake to ensure that it was finalised in time. Kat had been right, how many times had the groom been known to put his hand up and object to his own wedding? It remained surprising to Alfie to that day that his grandmother in law had resisted sending their wedding tape to _You've Been Framed_ in order to make a quick buck. He guessed he must have cared for Liza at some stage, a little. He'd been married to her. Alfie couldn't however deny that the truth of the matter had been that he'd seen the months and years ticking by, his friends content in their marriages and him single and unmarried. It was as Billy had said back in the early days; by a certain age, you needed to be part of a couple to fit in. For Alfie, that had extended to marriage also, but the point was valid nevertheless. He smiled as he recalled the events of one of the only occasions that Billy had spoken a great deal of sense; it had led to his being late for his lunch rendezvous with Kat, and the latest in their line of somewhat childish arguments. He chuckled to himself as he recalled that it was on that occasion that he and Kat had both accused the other of being childish. It was a rather sad state of affairs, but the truth remained that the memory of this time had caused him to smile more that day than Roxy had managed in the whole week. There was so much swirling around in the confines of Alfie's mind, as if it were on a loop. At this point, his thoughts returned to his wife, whom he couldn't deny that he missed, and his earlier domino comparison. The marriage had always meant more to Kat than a piece of paper, a few bits of jewellery and the ultimate seal of commitment between them. It was a mark of respect for Kat, an acceptance that her life was not determined by the terrible things which had been done to her. Without it, she'd regressed, regressed big time, and as usual, Michael had been seeking opportunities to satisfy his own seedy desires, to fulfil another of his sick fantasies. The guilt that had ultimately resulted from the unfortunate series of events had then seen Kat lower her opinion of herself still further, taking any semblance of self-esteem with it.

The next thing Alfie knew, he was standing before the door of his home, having become utterly preoccupied by his thoughts. Before he had even been able to get his key into the lock, the door swung open, revealing a frustrated Roxy, who sighed exasperatedly and had a face like thunder.

"Nice of you to join us," Roxy snarled as Alfie took a nervous step forward, suddenly wishing that he hadn't run a mile so to speak when Kat had spoken of them reuniting.

Alfie looked to Roxy, rather perplexed by her response. "Rox, I wasn't even gone an hour..."

"Where did you go?" she cut in bluntly.

Having considered responding with a sarcastic 'out' for about half a second, he reluctantly responded with, "For a walk, to the park." Roxy's mood had been notably worse of late, and she had been snapping at the slightest thing. He had no desire to make her any more unbearable to live with.

"Liar."

Alfie stood rooted to the spot yet expressionless. It was as if Roxy had chained him there, yet he couldn't be bothered to argue or to fight his corner.

Growing tired with the fact that she had as yet not managed to extract an explanation from her husband to be, Roxy seethed, "I saw you outside Kat's, and I know you went in, so don't try fobbing me off."

"And that's a crime now is it?"

"You're starting to speak like she does and now you're lying through your teeth… great likeness."

"Leave her alone. Whether she's a liar or not is nobody's business but mine." Alfie was really beginning to tire of this now. What was he talking about? He was at something of a loss amidst his struggle to recall when exactly he hadn't been tired with the situation.

"You what?! She pulls her knickers down for some slimeball, I helped you and suddenly I'm in the wrong?!"

"Oh I'm sure that was a massive inconvenience for you! You've been after me since the first day we met and don't even bother trying to deny it!"

Roxy was borderline furious now. "You haven't even told me what you were doing over there in the first place," she pointed out.

Roxy might have been furious, but Alfie had had enough. "Having mad passionate sex with Kat!" he called back, while storming off up into the flat.

* * *

Roxy eventually cornered Alfie in the lounge, having checked every other room in the flat prior to this. "Dutch courage?" she sneered, finding Alfie downing a shot of brandy. "You usually have that before the event, although that stupid slapper probably hasn't worked that one out yet."

Sighing heavily, Alfie slammed down his glass as her words cut through him and he started, "What were you doing checking the bedroom first of all places? What did you think? That I went to Kat's, put her in a bag, brought her back here, threw her in through the window and thought I'd get me leg over here for old time's sake? Get a grip!" He had grown tired of defending Kat to Roxy when it was abundantly clear that nothing was going to sink in; that wasn't to say that he didn't want to defend Kat on this occasion.

"Wouldn't put it past her. You… well I'm not so sure any more."

"I didn't sleep with Kat you stupid cow. You really think I would? I know what it feels like, remember?" "Well I know you do, with the way you were harping on about Derek downstairs. It ain't like I need reminding of that now, is it?" Alfie answered his own question as Roxy processed his previous words.

Following this, Alfie had in part been expecting an apology from Roxy, even though he'd lost it far enough to brand her a 'stupid cow.' He couldn't have been more wrong as it turned out.

"What were you doing there then?"

"Sorting stuff out, about Tommy," he claimed. Still not the truth, but believable, if he did say so himself.

By this point, Roxy was reaching for the vodka. "Why bother? He ain't even yours!"

"You really know how to stick the knife in tonight, don't you Rox? Like I needed reminding of that one an' all."

"Sorry," came a barely audible whimpering.

"You know I see that little boy as mine, so don't go throwing a fit every time we meet to arrange things. I'm trying to do what's right for Tommy here; can't exactly do it through lawyers, what with me foolishly putting Michael down on the birth certificate."

Operating once again on her self-interest agenda, Roxy began, "What about when we have a baby? Do you think you can love them equally, knowing that you've got a child that is really yours?"

"Yes," he voiced confidently, for a moment getting right in Roxy's face. "I'm doing this for Tommy. How do you think he'd end up feeling, if I gave up on him and left Michael as the only father in his life? Growing up and learning that he was fighting for custody of his sister, but didn't bother with him? I can't have that, I couldn't live with myself."

"You say that, but what if Tommy thinks he and our baby are different?"

"I'll sit him down, talk to him like I always intended before Michael went shooting his big mouth off. He'll know that because of an unfortunate series of events he has a biological link to Michael, but that I'm the one that's been there, that I'm the one that truly cares about him. That he's my son."

"Unfortunate series of events?" Roxy repeated with a hint of disbelief evident in her words. "What are you now, Lemony Snicket?!"

"I can't talk to you when you're in this mood, I'm going to bed," announced Alfie, who unfortunately wasn't quite as quick at making for the door as he had been earlier that day, for he found himself facing another barrage of questions.

"Now? It's 8:30."

Bingo, Alfie thought as he heard the question that Roxy had asked, as opposed to the ones that he had thought she might ask while in this mood like, 'In your former marital bed?' and 'Without Kat?' "Well I'm old aren't I? I'm tired," he insisted, fortunately managing to remain straight faced as he did so. He left the room without another word, knowing that even the demonic Roxy with which he was now faced would have nothing to say back to that. He had never been more thankful for his nickname of Granddad.


	4. Chapter 4

The following morning, Alfie was awoken by the faintest light making its way through the curtains and into the room. No sooner had he rubbed the sleepy dust from his eyes than he was cursing the extremely pale cream curtains that now hung unceremoniously over the window. Shortly following what Alfie could now only describe as his slip of the tongue, whereby he had asked Roxy to move in with him; she had covered the area of the flat, running around like a banshee and squealing excitedly that they should get new curtains, a new duvet cover and new lampshades. You name it, they'd got it. In simple terms, the flat was to be 'de Kat-ted,' for want of a better phrase. The decorating regime was unforgiving and seemed to be ignorant of the fact that Alfie's tastes in fashion and interior design were in many ways similar to Kat's, complimenting them perfectly.

The cream monstrosities dangling from the tired pole above their bedroom window had been Roxy's choice entirely, and Alfie's opinion of them was evident in the fact that he refused to call them curtains. Why? Because he was fairly sure that they weren't, and his Nana had always urged him to tell the truth. How could they be curtains, when Alfie routinely turned to the clock upon being roused from his slumber to find that it was the wrong side of 3am; 4am at a push in the event that he was either very lucky or bored half to death by Roxy the night before? The simple fact was that she couldn't make him laugh as Kat had, not even close. Frankly, Alfie believed that the designer of the so called curtains ought to have been strung up with copies of the Trade Descriptions Act, because he wasn't getting much sleep. He'd considered investing in one of the night blindfolds that he had heard some punters in the bar talking about one day, but had so far resisted on the basis that Roxy would probably start using him all the more for her baby making agenda were he ever to do so. The woman in question was fast becoming as preoccupied with the idea as she must have been; she of course being the sibling who must not be named. He could only conclude that his fiancée must be an extremely heavy sleeper indeed, which was strange, because he had been led to believe that he himself was such a sleeper. That was what Zoe and Kelly had taken delight in circling the Square to tell everyone, while informing them of his apparently excessively loud snores, to which they had borne witness when returning from one of their nights out clubbing back in the early days of his and Kat's marriage. He believed to this day that the pair must have been telling the truth; the snores must be too loud if they could make them out after long a night of drinking and partying. And then there was the curtain pole episode. Apparently, a simple metal curtain pole was too much of a reminder of Kat for Roxy's liking. Alfie had then given the go ahead for the purchase of a replacement, culminating in Roxy stating that this would be foregoing valuable booze money. It saddened Alfie to admit that this was about the only similarity that he could see between Roxy and Kat. The eventual conclusion to the tale was that Roxy had somehow obtained the aforementioned wooden curtain pole, which Alfie thought might have belonged to Peggy at one point or another. He thought 'at one point or another' as from the poor condition of the artefact, it could be inferred with relative ease that it had had more than a few too many owners; it was very nearly broken cleanly in half about its middle. If his assumption wasn't correct, then Alfie would be very concerned indeed; even Big Mo could have acquired a better quality one from Fat Elvis, whom was noted for the shocking quality of his merchandise, and of course, for being fat. Alfie sincerely hoped that he would manage more sleep on Christmas Eve night than he had done on this occasion, or else he would be in considerable danger of using the curtain pole for a Christmas cracker. They too were bound together only by a thin strip, after all.

Having turned over to check that Roxy remained asleep, Alfie crawled out from the bed and searched the room as best he could in the poor lighting, in view of locating a shirt and some jeans to wear. Not that it took much crawling at all, for Roxy was up to her usual tricks of hogging the covers.

By the time Alfie had finally located suitable attire for the day, he was shocked by how the time taken compared to the amount of sleep he had managed during the night. It was barely the night before; it was still the middle of the night as far as any sane person would be concerned, and but for a few hours which had ticked past since midnight, it remained the night before. There was something seriously amiss when one spent only four times as long asleep of a night as they did looking for their clothes the following morning. As much of a heavy sleeper as Alfie supposed that Roxy must be, he didn't feel that he could turn on the light of the bedroom; he needed to get out of here to think. Alone.

..

Thinking over his wife's words for what must have been at least the fiftieth time since she had uttered them the previous afternoon, Alfie once again drew a blank. In some respects he was not particularly surprised by this fact; he had managed only two hours of sleep the previous night. Even worse than usual. Back when this had started, he hadn't thought it possible that 'worse than usual' could exist, with his sleep haunted by images of Kat and Derek. After retiring to the bed in a bid to escape Roxy at only 8:30pm, he had lain awake for what was perhaps the longest four hours of his life; until 12:30am, thoughts swirling around in his head all the while. He had heard Roxy come to bed at about midnight, of course pretending to be asleep at this time. Alfie hadn't expected that she would sleep on the couch, but had the previous evening considered taking it himself. The idea was quickly dismissed however as Alfie knew that Roxy would never allow him to do so. He thought back to the times that he and Kat had rowed and she had banished him to the sofa, remembering how he'd rather have slept anywhere but there; except perhaps the floor, or the kitchen table which Kat had ended up with on one of the many nights that Tommy had got barely any sleep. It was a funny turn of events for the fact that Alfie would now sooner sleep anywhere than his own bed, including the said sofa, floor or table. Alfie didn't find the same series of events remotely amusing though. Tables. That took him back. He quickly shook away the thought and tried again to focus on only the thoughts that he needed to resolve. Easier said than done.

How could the wife who'd had a six month affair earn back his trust? Alfie didn't know, but this was most probably rooted in part to the fact that he couldn't put his finger on how he'd come to trust her implicitly in the first place. Was it the way she'd fought his corner when Dougie Slade had crawled out of the woodwork and everyone else had swallowed without question every word that he'd said? Maybe it pre-dated that; the stories that he'd heard of her speaking her mind regarding Little Mo's ex-husband, sticking her to her guns even when everyone else had doubted what she'd been saying. He after all knew how it affected Kat when others doubted her. Was it the way she'd kept shtum about the true reason for his beating at the hands of Jack Dalton's heavies? Perhaps it was the way she'd looked after Nana for him shortly before her hydrocephalus operation? Was it a combination of all of those things? All of those and still more besides? It must have been, he concluded, recalling the trust issues that they'd encountered in their initial courting period, all of which were on his part. Sadly, it had been a long time before he'd trusted her completely. Could he ever get to that point again?

Complicating the situation still further was the issue of her various one night stands. Alfie swiftly cursed himself for thinking back on them with such a label. Andy hadn't been a one night stand at all, however stupid, foolish and pigheaded his reaction has been at the time. He was no expert on the ins and outs of the law, which might have contributed to his winding up behind bars on two separate occasions, but he was pretty sure that it qualified as rape if someone didn't consent freely. Kat had hardly consented freely with the various threats, digs and vivid images that he'd piled upon her. Roger, Michael and Mark; they clearly were one night stands, but wasn't referring to three people as 'various' a little harsh at least? It wasn't as if she'd not got their names, or had forgotten them; if he was brutally honest, neither of them ever would.

However much Alfie could quite easily lose himself in these unhappy thoughts; however much he could pick events out of their ten year history to place in a Trust vs Not To Be Trusted scale; however much his heart was nudging him toward ignoring all the bad things and convincing himself that she'd truly changed since that fateful night last December, and was someone who could be trusted once again in a mass episode of cognitive dissonance; surely it was a decision that was based on gut instinct? He looked back on the events of December as if they were the key to everything that had gone so very wrong in his once blissful marriage, but was that really true? He knew the answer to that at least; a resounding no, as he'd pointed out to his cousin yesterday. Was it now just too complicated ever to be resurrected?


End file.
